The Mineral Physics Institute grew out of common tools, common problems, and common needs of a small group of faculty. The central scientific theme of the Mineral Physics Institute is that we can gain information about the Earth through a better understanding of the materials of the Earth. Seismology today is discovering the magnitude and location of lateral changes in acoustic velocity within the Earth s mantle. These highs and lows are inferred to reflect flow within the Earth and hence are tied to the origin of earthquakes and volcanoes. However, without an understanding of the properties of the materials that make up the mantle subject to the environment of this region, we cannot interpret the seismic observations in terms of temperature or flow. In fact most of our knowledge of the Earth is tied to our understanding of both physical and chemical properties of earth materials. These studies require extremely sophisticated equipment. The environment in the Earth demands that the frontiers of pressure and temperature be continually pushed back and the material properties be monitored using experimental probes including synchrotrons, lasers, electron beams, and acoustics.

The Mineral Physics Institute found its roots in the experimental research tradition of the geoscience program in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences. At the time of its formation in the mid to late 60 s this department was able to attract world class experimentalists by establishing state- of-the-art laboratories with State support. The second wave of scientists to join the department were attracted mostly by the reputation established by these pioneers and it is the second wave that founded the Mineral Physics Institute. In late 1987 the founding faculty of the Mineral Physics Institute submitted a proposal for the formation of the Mineral Physics Institute to University Provost. The proposal was accepted and the Institute was born early 1988.

In addition to the Graduate Research Initiative which established a funding potential for such institutes within SUNY, there were several factors that motivated the formation of this institute. Prominent among these was the need to establish an identity for the research thrust that is common to the founding group of scientists. With an identity, it was possible to pursue funds from outside agencies; with an identity, it was possible to establish a platform that enables interactions with several constituencies from the worldwide scientific community to the industrial and educational communities. The Stony Brook High Pressure Laboratory had already become defined as a national facility by the National Science Foundation. The identity within the University as an organized research unit served to complement this externally defined distinction.

Additional motivation came from the common needs of the Institute faculty. The originating group were exclusively experimentalists. For this group, the frontier of the science is limited by the tools that we use. It is necessary that these tools be maintained and that their capabilities grow. Thus, it is essential to preserve a talented core of technical personnel engaged in the program. Again, the department recognized this need in the early founding days by investing in a machine shop and electronics shop using University support. Now it was necessary to form a coherent program that would continue to articulate the importance of the existing technical resources and to augment this base by combining resources.

With the establishment of the Institute, we broadened participation with the addition of colleagues from the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and Princeton University and entered the national competition for a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center. In 1990, the Center for High Pressure Research (CHiPR) was founded as one of the 25 STC s awarded by NSF out of over 500 applications during two rounds of competition. Stony Brook is the host institution for CHiPR and the Mineral Physics Institute is now identified as the Stony Brook element of CHiPR. It is the vehicle through which State matching funds for the Center flow. Administratively and scientifically CHiPR-Stony Brook and the Mineral Physics Institute are identical. Even from the point of view of budget, looking at the NSF contribution separate from the University contribution gives an incomplete picture. Thus,in the remaining discussion, we will not distinguish between these two entities, but try to demonstrate the program that has arisen from the combined support base. In the following, we briefly describe the scope of the Mineral Physics Institute programs. Documentation and detailed information is given in the second part of this report. Here we try to describe the rationale and philosophy of the program.

Scholarship

The principal goal of the Mineral Physics Institute is the advancement of scholarship in the form of experimental scientific studies relevant to the earth sciences.Mineral Physics, an interdisciplinary field that includes physics, chemistry, and materials science as well as the geosciences, has undergone tremendous advances in the last few years.

Important in the progress of the field has been our contributions to improved technologies. We have developed state-of-the art instrumentation for achieving high pressure, repeatedly breaking high pressure and high temperature records. We have developed high pressure synchrotron measuring techniques for studying samples at high pressure and temperature. We continually set new limits in characterizing thermodynamic properties and structural properties of tiny samples. We were the first to establish a modern multi-anvil research facility in the USA (in 1985); since then over a dozen multi- anvil laboratories have been founded in North America and Europe. During the last few years, we have been able to refine the chemical composition of the earth's lower mantle and define possible storage modes for water in the earth's interior. We have synthesized and characterized many new materials.

Contributions of The Mineral Physics Institute should be measured not only in terms of a list of our own publications, but also in the extraordinary impact that the events leading up to the formation of the Center and establishment of CHiPR itself have had on research efforts in dozens of laboratories. We have interacted with virtually every successful high-pressure and/or mineral physics effort in the world. The Mineral Physics Institute has been a source of samples and facilities for scientists outside of the Institute. We are one of the few laboratories that routinely synthesizes large volume samples of the perovskite phase of MgSiO₃, the dominant mineral in the earth's interior. These and other high pressure samples made at Stony Brook have been studied with a variety of techniques in laboratories throughout the world. Our facilities are used by many researchers from a number of disciplines to study materials of interest to their programs. For example, we have begun interacting with the Center for Superconductivity at the University of Illinois. This STC has conducted pilot studies using our facilities to synthesize high temperature superconductors which require pressure for their stability. The facilities that we are continuing to develop at the national synchrotrons and neutron sources provide access for the entire scientific community to these world-class instruments.

The Mineral Physics Institute provides an exciting, friendly, and interactive environment for scientists, students, and visitors. With the ability to move easily within the three CHiPR institutions, students now ask What is the best way to solve this problem rather than What can I do with the equipment in this laboratory . A daily round table lunch gathering, weekly seminar speakers, a continual stream of visitors for short and long term help to create an atmosphere that supports young scientists and stimulates potential scientists.

Outreach to scientific community

In addition to the many individual positions such as president of a scientific society or editor of a journal held by the MPI faculty as described in the individual vitae, the Institute enables the sharing of the unique facilities that exist at Stony Brook with the scientific community. With the first and one of the few current high pressure facilities in the US capable of creating materials that are stable only deep in the Earth, we have opened our laboratory to outside users who wish to conduct their own experiments under these extreme conditions.

The Mineral Physics Institute has built and uses the only large volume high pressure system using x-rays to study the samples at elevated pressure and temperature in the US. This system, operating at Brookhaven National Laboratory, is open to outside users from the entire scientific community. Experience gained from this operation has led Stony Brook scientists in the design of a further installation at the Advanced Photon Source, the 3rd generation synchrotron being built at the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago. The base that the MPI provides is essential for such activities. The entire earth science community benefits as this effort opens world class scientific instruments such as the 3rd generation synchrotron to the earth science community.

Undergraduate education programs

All of the departmental faculty in the Mineral Physics Institute are fully dedicated university educators. They assume a full teaching load as defined by the Department of Earth and Space Sciences guidelines. This involves teaching at both the graduate and undergraduate level as deemed necessary by the department. The only exception is the director, who assumes a 1/2 time teaching load.

The Mineral Physics Institute has a research-oriented summer scholars program for undergraduates from around the country. This program is widely advertised, is geared for the summer after the junior year, and attracts about 100 applications for 6-8 internships. The undergraduate students work with a faculty supervisor on a research project over a 10 week period, culminating with a written report and an oral presentation. A visit to Princeton and the Geophysical Lab has become a standard part of the program.

Education in the US needs to reach out to traditionally underrepresented groups of people. The Institute has an active program to reach this community. The most successful efforts have come from our direct ties with Delaware State University, an historically black institution. A recent alumnus of Stony Brook is now an Assistant Professor of Physics at this college. He has worked with us to recruit underrepresented minorities and women into our summer scholars program and, as an adjunct faculty in the Institute, he joins us in the summer to help advise these students. While this program is still small, 1/3 of our summer scholars program have been from underrepresented groups. We have also been quite successful in the participation of women at all levels.

Pre-college Education

Cutting edge research generates a contagious excitement and enthusiasm for science. The Institute provides the opportunity to share this excitement with abroader community and capture the imagination of the next generation of scientists and engineers. The Mineral Physics Institute has initiated a program, Journey to the Center of the Earth , which works with the K- 12 local school systems. The program includes working with teachers to develop, within the existing curriculum, teaching tools and materials that communicate this enthusiasm to students, visits of Stony Brook personnel to the local schools, teacher training workshops, student visits to the laboratories, and the development of a display area in the Museum of Long Island Natural Sciences. Programs such as Let s Make Diamonds and Earth Shakers have been developed for different age groups that bring students into the University setting and into the laboratory.

Based on our first few years of experience and contact with teachers and students, we are now hoping to expand our pre-college program. Science is doing, not collecting facts. This is the basis for our approach. Furthermore, teachers know how to teach and can learn and transmit information. We can contribute to the schools because we know how to do research, how to ask questions, how to find answers. The recently

proposed NY State Regent s curriculum for 9^th grade Earth Sciences emphasizes the need for students to do research. The Mineral Physics Institute is proposing to NSF a program that will help make this a reality. We are proposing to help teachers lead research efforts by their students. We will give summer workshops, we will give year long guidance to both teachers and students, and we will create a resource center for earth science teachers at Stony Brook that will help support this effort. We hope to start in the summer of 1995.

Outreach to Industry

Materials with unusual properties are of fundamental importance to national industry. Our basic research thrusts into the added dimension of high pressure provides a basis for discovering and understanding materials that can serve these needs. Our approach has been to encourage and nurture scientist-to-scientist interactions, providing facility support, technical and scientific expertise, and a dialogue for the exchange of ideas, capabilities, and needs. We have conducted a systematic testing program to determine the properties of tungsten carbide, a critical component of all high-pressure devices. Our need for hard anvils has stimulated a dialogue with GE to fabricate better sintered diamond products. Fruits from this type of interaction may benefit both the industrial applications as well as the high pressure research community.

The Institute mission is not directed towards a product. However, we do need industrial developments to improve our equipment and we can help to define parameters to improve their products. We do this. The advisory committee to CHiPR includes a representative from GE and one from Exxon. Industry knows that we exist and can come to us with questions and receive help from us. We know individuals within industrial research groups and can pass to them information that we gain that might be useful to them.

Future

Most of the life of the Institute to date has been devoted to initiating the programs outlined above. The next five years will emphasize execution of these programs. The Center for High Pressure Research has assurance of funding for the next four years with further extensions possible. We hope to approach these years with the same flexibility as with the past five, pursuing ideas and directions that are compatible with the basic premise set out above. The Mineral Physics Institute covers a broad spectrum of activities that define important University roles in the coming years. Connections with industry, and working with the education of the pre-college students, are not traditionally in the purview of a University, but the Mineral Physics Institute is doing something because there is a need and because we can help. We will make mistakes, but because we have the flexibility defined by the Institute, we will continue to try, and we will continue to have successes.

RESEARCH STAFF

Frederic Bejina (Postdoctoral Fellow, Ph. D., University of Paris Sud, 1995 ) Study of atomic diffusion in mantle minerals in multi-anvil apparatus; use of nuclear microanalysis techniques to measure diffusion profiles.

Ganglin Chen (Postdoctoral Fellow, Ph.D., University of Colorado, 1992) Ultrasonic measurements of the elastic properties of mantle minerals at simultaneous high pressures and temperatures in multi-anvil apparatus.

Jiuhua Chen (Research Assistant Professor) Monochromatic X-ray diffraction studies in SAM85 multi-anvil apparatus. Phase transformations in minerals and water effects on physical properties of minerals.

Joseph Cooke (Graduate Student) Elasticity of pyrope garnet at high pressure using ultrasonic techiques in multi-anvil apparatus.

Lucy Flesch (Graduate Student) Elasticity studies of MgSiO₃ orthopyroxene at high pressure using both ultrasonic and static compression techniques in multi-anvil apparatus.

Tibor Gasparik (Research Associate Professor) Experimental phase equilibria and sample synthesis in multi-anvil, high-pressure apparatus (USSA-2000)and development of new experimental techniques.

Ivan Getting (Adjunct Research Professor, SUNY; Senior Research Associate, Univ. of Colorado) Materials testing and analysis for design of high-pressure apparatus.

Gabriel Gwanmesia (Adjunct Associate Professor Delaware State University) Synthesis and hot-pressing of polycrystalline aggregates of high-pressure phases of mantle minerals and characterization by optical and electron microscopy and ultrasonic techniques.

Claude Herzberg (Adjunct Professor Rutgers University) Melting and subsolidus phase equilibria in multi-anvil, high-pressure apparatus.

Hiroyuki Kagi (Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr., Sci., University of Tokyo, 1994) Water storage in the deep interior of the Earth; structural chemistry of hydrogen and water in mantle-derived minerals; syntheis of hydrous minerals and optical spectroscopy for deciphering OH configuration in those minerals.

Younghee Ko (Postdoctoral Fellow, Ph.D. Brooklyn Polytech, 1986) Synthesis of novel open framework materials, particularly sulfides.

Baosheng Li (Postdoctoral Fellow, Ph.D SUNY at Stony Brook 1996) Ultrasonic measuremnts of elastic properties of mantle minerals and Equation of State studies of those minerals using in-situ X-rays.

Robert Liebermann (Professor) Elasticity of high-pressure phases of mantle minerals Mechanisms and kinetics of phase transformations in silicates at high-pressures and temperatures using X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy. Control and characterization of specimen environment in multi-anvil apparatus.

Donald Lindsley (Professor) Pyroxene phase equilibria at high-pressures and temperatures and calibration of various geothermometers and geobarometers.

Jun Liu (Graduate Student) Thermochemistry of stishovite and coesite phases of SiO₂ using multi-anvil apparatus.

Hanna Nekvasil (Associate Professor) Thermodynamic modeling of melts and solids integrated with experimental investigations of phase equilibria.

John Parise (Professor) Crystallography and synthetic solid-state chemistry of earth materials, particularly transition metal oxides, silicates and sulfide framework structures. Powder X-ray and neutron diffraction studies at high pressures and temperatures.

Jae-hyun Park (Graduate Student) Exploratory solid state chemistry at high pressure. Structure and properties of oxide phases.

Robert Rapp (Assistant Research Professor, PhD, Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., 1990) Phase relations and stability of hydrous minerals in basalt at high-pressure, implications for element recycling in subduction zones and the fate of subducted slabs.

Richard Reeder (Professor) Phase transformations in minerals as elucidated by high-temperature X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy surface studies of minerals and analog compounds.

Paul Schields (Post Doctoral Fellow, Ph. D., Arizona State University, 1995) Characterizing planar defects generated during the phase transformation, growth and deformation of crystals using X-ray powder diffraction, nuclear magnetic resonance and transmission electron microscopy.

Adam Simon (Graduate Student) Experimental study of anorthosite residual liquids and associated monzodiorites and iron-, titanium-, and phosphorus-rich rocks.

Yegor Sinelnikov (Graduate Student) Elasticity and equations of state of perovskite compounds in the system CaTiO₃-CaSiO₃ using ultrasonic and static compression techniques in multi-anvil apparatus.

Jefferey Sweeney (Postdoctoral Fellow, Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1996) Measurements of elastic properties at high pressures by Brillouin spectroscopy through a diamond anvil cell. Strength measurements on superhard materials at high temperatures and pressures in multi-anvil apparatus.

Michael Vaughan (Research Associate Professor) In situ X-ray diffraction studies using synchrotron radiation at NSLS with multi-anvil, high-pressure apparatus (SAM85). Responsible for apparatus development and training and oversight of internal and external users of the SAM85 apparatus.

Donald J. Weidner (Professor and Director of CHiPR) Equations of state of solids at high pressures and temperatures using in situX-ray diffraction at NSLS and multi-anvil apparatus Brillouin spectroscopy of high-pressure phases as a function of pressure and for temperature.

Shaoxiong Wen (Graduate Student) Development of associated solution thermodynamic models of silicate melts and solids and and computer modeling of crystallization and melting processes.

Yujun Wu (Graduate Student). Strength of mantle minerals under high pressure and high temperature using synchrotron x-ray diffraction.

Xiang Xia (Graduate Student) Physical properties of hydrous minerals.

Dimitri Xirouchakis (Graduate Student) Experimental investigation and thermodynamic modelling of titanite-bearing phase equilibria.

Jianzhong Zhang (Research Assistant Professor, Ph. D., The City University of New York, 1992) Melting and subsolidus phase equilibria studies in multi-anvil apparatus. Equations of state of solids using in-situ X-ray diffraction at NSLS.

Qiang Zeng (Graduate Student) Integration of structural studies of silicate melts and the development of thermodynamic models. NMR studies of glass structure and glass/volatile interactions.

Hui Zhao (Graduate Student) Elasticity of minerals.

PROFESSIONAL AND SUPPORT STAFF

Kenneth Baldwin (Senior Technical Associate) Manages the X-ray diffraction and computing facilities including software for the control and operation of the SAM-85 apparatus and other diffraction equipment.

James Broyles (Administrative Coordinator) Oversees administrative and budget functions in the Center for High Pressure Research.

Shirley King (Administrative Assistant to Director of MPI) Responsible for daily operations in the administrative office of the Mineral Physics Institute.

Ann Lattimore (Administrative Assistant to Director of High Pressure Lab) Responsible for daily operations in the administrative office of the High Pressure Laboratory, designs, publishes and disseminates all CHiPR/MPI public relations material (brochures, posters, exhibits, etc.), coordinates maintenance and visitor reservations for CHiPR guest apartment. Plans and coordinates major CHiPR events such as site visit luncheons and other functions.

Glenn A. Richard (Educational Coordinator) Develops interactive hands-on instructional tools and educational programs that focus on the nature of the Earth's interior for use in secondary school science programs and workshops on the use of these tools and programs for teachers. Designs and builds exhibits on the Earth's interior and high-pressure research

Barbara Siemsen (Special Assistant to Director) Is responsible for all state personnel appointments.

Filton Joseph (Electronics Design Assistant) Works in the Electronics Support Facility. Assists in the design and fabrication of unique electronic devices used in the experimental research program.

Last modified April 14, 1997

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